


Run

by StellaLuna365



Series: Anchors in Oceans of Embers and Ash [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew Minyard Has Feelings, Andrew Minyard Loves Neil Josten, Angst and Feels, Fluff, Gen, No Beta, POV Neil Josten, We Die Like Men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27949001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellaLuna365/pseuds/StellaLuna365
Summary: Neil wants to run.He won't, because he can never give up the Foxes or Palmetto or Andrew. He won't run.But he wants to, so badly it hurts.
Relationships: Neil Josten & Andrew Minyard, Neil Josten & The Foxes (All For The Game), Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: Anchors in Oceans of Embers and Ash [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2046821
Comments: 3
Kudos: 179





	Run

Nathaniel Wesninski is a runner.

He and his mother lived in twenty-two cities, and he has had twenty-two names. Twenty-two personalities, appearances. They’ve traversed countries and cities and states, met and left people and places and things. Everything in his life has been transient and fleeting—the very definition of belongings was nothing more than necessity or function.

Twenty-two cities, not including Millport, Arizona, over seven years amounting to about four months in each place. In some places they stayed longer, and in some places they stayed less. Their shortest stay was in Silverthorne, Wyoming, as George Kenton. It was twenty-six days long—they were discovered by one of Nathan’s better trackers and had to flee almost immediately. Neil can still feel the sharp, fire-burnt pain of the knife in his hip when he tried to run. He was fourteen.

The longest stay, in contrast, was ten months and twenty days. Neil remembers because he was actually pretty impressed they managed to stay that long. That stay was in Montreal, and that’s where he learned French. His names then was Jules.

Neil is not a runner, but Nathaniel is a part of him, and after ten months and twenty-one days at Palmetto State University, he realizes that this is the longest he’s ever stayed in one place since he ran.

That’s when the itch starts.

It’s nothing at first, really. It’s the distant realization of that fact, an idle thought that that’s pretty impressive, a little dangerous, but then the Moriyamas cut him the deal and he doesn’t have to run. They win against the Ravens and Andrew and he share cigarettes and secrets, and he falls more and more until he knows he can never climb out of the mystery that is Andrew Minyard.

The Foxes are his family—Nicky and Matt, Allison and Renee and Dan, even Kevin and Aaron, Wymack and Abby—they’re family, more than he’s ever really had, and he has everything.

So why, with every passing day, does the itch to run grow?

…

“We’re playing another round,” Andrew says one day. They’re in the beanbag, Neil curled up and dozing slightly as the TV rumbles in the background. Andrew’s hand is on his, the only parts of them touching, and Neil is content to ignore that itch. Kevin is with Aaron and Katelyn, out doing something, and the upperclassmen (plus Nicky, which is a nice step of progress) are shopping at Allison’s behest. Neil is enjoying the peace.

Andrew’s words wake him, and he’s still a little bit asleep as he blinks into Andrew’s eyes, cut to him through the smoke trailing from his cigarette. “Hm?”

“We’re playing another round,” he repeats, blowing a cloud a smoke in front of him. Andrew takes his hand away, and Neil feels a little colder at the loss, but sits up. “Why have you been acting weird?”

Neil blinks. “Huh?”

“You’ve been acting weird. Tell me why.”

Neil blinks again. “I don’t…uh…I don’t really know what you mean.”

Andrew’s dispassionate eyes are the epitome of unimpressed. “Fine, do I need to go first?”

Neil can’t do anything but stare at him, still reeling from the abrupt question through a sleep-slurred haze. “Andrew, what are you talking about?”

“Ask me a question, dumbass. Then you have to answer mine.”

“…okay? Um…” Neil doesn’t really have a question queued up, so he takes a second to think. Andrew takes another drag of his cigarette. “Why did you start smoking?”

The only thing that tells Neil that Andrew isn’t expecting the question is the rise of one eyebrow. “That’s your question?”

“What, do you not want to answer?”

Andrew rolls his eyes. “One of my foster mothers said it helped with stress. I was ten. They didn’t help, but the nicotine stuck around anyways.”

Neil wasn’t expecting something so benign. Still, he’s somewhat glad it is. “Oh. Okay.”

“Now.” Andrew’s fingers find his chin, unrelenting. Neil wants to look away, but he doesn’t think he can. “Tell me what’s wrong with you.”

Andrew’s fingers stay on his chin for a long minute as Neil thinks. He’s been ignoring the itch, and he doesn’t think he’s been showing in his actions. At least, he’s trying not to let it. He doesn’t know how Andrew noticed.

Then again, it’s Andrew.

“Neil. Stop thinking. You’re going to hurt yourself.” Neil rolls his eyes and Andrew takes his fingers away, taking another drag of smoke. “Answer me.”

Neil fidgets, shrugging, and looks down. He feels vulnerable in a way he doesn’t like, because he promised he wouldn’t run anymore. The desire itself feels like a betrayal. “I’m fine.”

“I will break your nose if you say that again.”

“That’s actually domestic battery.”

“A small infraction on an impressive resume. Now quit stalling.”

“I want to run.”

Andrew goes very still, eyes boring into Neil’s with an intensity Neil hasn’t seen since Baltimore. Neil doesn’t let himself look away, either, but it’s hard to continue looking at Andrew when his hazel eyes are darkening so rapidly.

“I’m not going to,” Neil amends quickly, unnerved by the utter stillness of Andrew’s form. “I’m not. I promised I wouldn’t anymore, and don’t…I don’t _want_ to. But I’ve never stayed in one place so long, and it feels…wrong.”

Andrew is still motionless, but his eyes aren’t quite so dark. “You are beginning to make ‘running’ another word I thoroughly hate. You run, I will drag you back and handcuff you to your bed.”

The moment the last word leaves Andrew’s lips, they’re both still, and Neil’s eyes widen more than he means to let them. Riko is dead and gone, but that doesn’t mean the trauma of his stay at Edgar Allan doesn’t haunt him.

It’s been a long time since Riko’s memory has induced a panic attack, and his heart rate isn’t dangerously high, but he still feels his breath hitch.

Maybe his vision fades a bit too much, maybe Riko’s image lingers in his mind a little too long, but Andrew’s cool fingers find the back of his neck and shove his head down between his knees before he knows what’s happening.

His hands are in his lap, clutching his pant legs, and his shirt rides up enough to see the handcuff scars. He remembers the gruesome lines, opened in Evermore and healed only to scar completely and irreversibly under Lola Malcolm’s care. He hates those scars.

Neil’s fingers twitch towards Andrew’s wrist as he wheezes, but he waits. Andrew growls something and takes his hand, intertwining their fingers as Neil calms down.

Andrew hates the word sorry, but there’s an apology in his insistent hands, in the careful way he helps Neil sit up when he’s done breathing too fast, in the way he lights up another cigarette and holds it to Neil’s mouth. In the tight, thin line of his lips and the way his eyes are dark.

“It’s okay,” Neil says after a drag, coughing on the smoke as his lungs recover. “It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean it, I’m fine.”

Andrew doesn’t look convinced. Still, for Neil’s sake, he leans back and takes another drag, their hands remaining locked together. “You are not. Aren’t you the one who said not to lie to a liar?”

“I didn’t say it to you.”

“I heard. That is enough.”

Neil can’t help a smile, and his trembling calms at Andrew’s steady presence. “I’m not going to run, Andrew.”

“That is a very good answer, Neil Josten.” There’s a beat of silence. “If you do, I will come after you and drag you back. As many times as I need to before your desire to run is nonexistent.”

Neil quirks a smile, lying back down on the beanbag, letting his eyes close. “As many times as it takes, huh?”

“You heard me the first time.”

Neil smiles again, shifting closer to Andrew. “Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

Neil puts his head on Andrew’s thigh, sighing as he warms. He can hear Andrew sigh as he adjusts to let Neil curl closer. “You are insufferable.”

“You like me anyways.”

“I hate you,” he corrects coolly.

“You hate me enough to chase after me if I run, huh?”

“156%.”

“Really? I thought it was higher.”

“It is steadily climbing. Go to sleep.”

Neil does. It takes a while, though. Andrew must think he falls asleep a bit faster than he actually does, because Andrew drapes a blanket over Neil’s shoulders and leans back, turning off the TV. But Neil won’t say anything.

Neil still feels the urge to run, the _wrongness_ of not running, of not changing his name and appearance and taking off. But it’s duller now, because…well, escaping his father and his followers had been difficult, but Neil doesn’t know a single person who could outrun Andrew Minyard.

Looks like he’s stuck. He doesn’t mind so much.

Neil dreams of orange jerseys and familiar faces and home.

**Author's Note:**

> Another cute little thing because I love All for the Game. Let me know what you thought! Thanks!


End file.
